https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... l-era.htmlI’ve been writing regular newspaper columns for the Deseret News for roughly eleven years. Over several of those years, I was writing three columns every two weeks — a weekly solo column, called “Defending the Faith,” on Latter-day Saint issues, and a biweekly column (co-authored, until his shocking and too-early death at the end of 2019, with my friend Bill Hamblin) on world religions. (Links to most of the former, though not quite all, are gathered here. Links to most if not all of the latter are gathered here.)
Well, that’s all come to an end.
After a month of uncertainty occasioned by the transition of the Deseret News away from a principally printed format to an electronic one — a reflection of the turbulence and change happening in the world of print journalism more generally — I received word last night that my bi-weekly column on world religions no longer fits the design of the newspaper, meaning that my tenure as a columnist for the Deseret News is now finished. The “Mormon Times” section disappeared quite a while ago, and now the “Faith” section is gone. My LDS-oriented column had already been terminated somewhat more than a year ago, and now I’m done with the bi-weekly column on religions of the world.
I won’t deny that I’m saddened and disappointed by this development. The columns had come to be a fixture in my world. Part of my regular routine.
I’m still trying to decide what I’m going to do instead, how I’m going to use the time that regularly went to the Deseret News.
Here, in the meantime, is the last column that I submitted to the editor of the Deseret News. It was never published. As you will easily see, it was written before the inauguration of President Joe Biden; it was submitted on 8 January.
Mopologetics is an ever decreasing circle.